“The easiest diet is, you know, eat vegetables, eat fresh food. Just a really sensible healthy diet like you read about all the time.”
Drew Carey

Baby Mustard Greens Indian Stir Fry … quick, as spicy as you like it, simple and fuss free. Fresh produce is one of the highlights of winter in North India, and mustard greens a quintessential favourite. Someone asked me the other day if I only bake, and I almost gawked! I cook more than I bake, or maybe equal amounts. I love to cook, and love trying new stuff. I just don’t blog it often enough.

So turning a corner near home yesterday, I chanced upon this young lad selling a cartload of farm fresh vegetables. The greens caught my glad eye and I hit the brakes. They weren’t the normal greens we see everyday. They were tiny, or rather baby, mustard greens … fresh, tender and absolutely delightful. All I could think of was ‘I wish I had my camera‘. The next best thing was of course to buy some, take it home and shoot! So I bought a bunch of stuff for a princely Rs100 {less than $2} and raced home in excitement.

North Indian winter is incomplete without a meal of sarson ka saag and makki ki roti. It’s a dish I make often through the winter, yet this year I haven’t got there for some silly reason. The upside of course that winter is longer and colder this year, so there’s plenty of promise of the dish showing up in the days to come. Since that is a more involved dish to make despite the several shortcuts I take, the Baby Mustard Greens Indian Stir Fry seemed a simpler option.

A quick consultation with Sangeeta who rules the roost for fresh produce and is a ‘food knowledge bank‘ in my eyes, and I knew what I would make. I cooked up a simple stir fry … loads of green chilies and loads of flavour, and served it up with one of my favourite non vegetarian dishes – a chicken korma. Kept the leaves whole for this since they were small and tender, yet you can always chop them up.

Also feel free to reduce {or increase } the green chilies. they add a nice touch of heat served alongside the mild and flavourful Awadhi Chicken Korma, which incidentally is one of our family favourites. That korma, shared here and seems to get better each time we make it! It’s simple and uncomplicated too, with staple pantry ingredients.

Recipe: Baby Mustard Greens Indian Stir Fry

Summary:Baby Mustard Greens Indian Stir Fry … quick, as spicy as you like it, simple and fuss free. Fresh produce is one of the highlights of winter in North India, and mustard greens a quintessential favourite.

Prep Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 30 minutes Ingredients:

750g baby mustard greens, leaves picked

1 1/2 tbsp mustard oil

1 whole dried red chili

1/2 tsp asafoetida

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

3 green chillies, finely sliced

1 medium tomato, chopped

Salt to taste

Method:

Wash and spin the baby mustard leaves in a salad spinner to get rid of extra water. {You can chop the leaves f you like]

Heat oil in a wok, add the whole red chili when the oil reaches smoking point, and discard it once it blackens.

Add asafoetida, green chillies and tomato to oil and stir fry to mix.

Add all the leaves, reduce heat to simmer and cover and cook for 5-7 minutes until the leaves wilt.

Open, season with salt, stir to mix well, and simmer for another 10 minutes or so until the leaves are cooked.

“I am starting to think that maybe memories are like this dessert. I eat it, and it becomes a part of me, whether I remember it later or not.”
Erica Bauermeister

Dark Chocolate Oat & Walnut Pudding {eggless} … with the festive season well underway, it’s always the more the merrier when it comes to desserts. Leave it to me, and I would pretty much try and squeeze and recreate every dessert to fit into wine glasses, or any glasses for that matter. There is something quite ethereal and fun about it. Convenient and quick too!

This is what the year is probably going to be like. Quick recipes. Fun too. Hopefully will get a handle on the techs behind the camera. The healthy, or rather healthier twist is also going to rule. Feels like a lot more chocolate through winter, and then loads of summer fruit in the hot months. So much to look forward to.I am a huge believer in individually portioned desserts, preferably in glasses. It’s fun to layer in them, fun to see the visual delight they offer and fun to see kids faces light up while holding a stem glass. That I also play around with different sizes and kinds of glasses is a personal choice. I need to break the monotony of life, of setting, of serving and of course of taking photographs.

So this is a recipe I recently did for Cosmopolitan India. The criteria was interesting … an original recipe, easy to cook, shouldn’t take longer than 20-30 minutes to put together and most importantly, it should boast ingredients with ‘beauty benefits’. Create anything you like as long as it will do the skin some good.I have been working a LOT with oats of late, especially with my association with Fit Foodie. Well oats are good for the skin too, as a scrub, as a face pack, and of course ‘in a dish to eat’!! Chocolate and honey fitted right in! Just my kind of recipe, and one that went well with the theme!

So Good for You!Oats are big on anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties that battle skin probs, and they work as a natural moisturizer. Dark chocolate repairs dry skin, shields against UV rays, erases fine lines and wrinkles, adds shine to locks, and promotes hair growth!

I did another interesting dessert in a glass for a magazine I write for. It was a Cranberry Cocktail Fruit Jelly, which appeared in Abraxas NU this December. The recipe is festive, it’s fun and it’s make ahead! See…On another note, I was thrilled to be featured in the VOGUE India, Food & Drink Guide 2015 … doing what I like to do best! The guide showcased ‘food bloggers who are excellent photographers’. Yours truly found mention there!

Cheers to the new year. What is your favourite ‘dessert in a glass’ OR favourite way to serve dessert?

Place all ingredients in a heavy bottom pan and simmer over low heat, stirring constantly until it begins to thicken. Once it becomes as thick as a custard, take off heat, allow to cool, then puree with an immersion blender or blitz in a food processor.

Fold the chopped walnuts through {optional}

Pour into serving bowls / glasses.

Cool and then chill for 4-6 hours, preferably overnight.

Top with roasted walnuts, chocolate shavings, or even seasonal berries like blueberries, strawberries etc.

Orange Almond Cake {gluten free} … wafts of sweet almond with citrusy notes of orange float through the kitchen, virtually transporting you to the Mediterranean. One bite and you will find it hard to believe that the cake is flourless with no added fat. It is delightfully moist and orange flavoured. Almond meal adds interesting texture, and pairs beautifully with the choice of fruit.

It’s the peak of winters here, cold as cold can be. Day before was the coldest at 2.6C, the lowest temperature recorded in December in the past so many years. The statistics don’t leave you, neither does the deep chill. It gets into your very bones. This is North Indian winter for you. In the background the TV plays endlessly; CNN telling you about the latest aviation disaster. Dreadful news at the end of the year. I’m ready for a new year. Bye bye 2014!

It’s easier to immerse yourself in what comforts you most. I click. Loads. Moody shots mainly. Sometimes you crave good news. Sometimes you wish you could turn the clock back to simple living. For times like this, I head for the kitchen, get embraced by the warmth, lose myself in the aromas that warm the cockles of your heart!

Speaking to Cookaroo a couple of days ago, she mentioned she was off to make an Orange Almond Cake. Snapped me out of my somnambulent frozen state. I had an Orange Almond Cake sitting here in my drafts, one I had done for Travel & Leisure Asia a few months ago. I’ve remade it recently since oranges and back in season.

With the market flooded with ripe, orange juicy fruit, it’s a great time to bake this cake. I’ve baked this a couple of times, both with oranges and with kumquats too. Always good. Made a couple of trifles as well. Orange Almond Cake, whipped cream with Grand Marnier, and some almond praline made the layers. Divine!The recipe is inspired from passover cakes that find root in cuisine of the Sephardic Jews who originate from the countries of the Middle East. The cake is ‘leavened wheat free’ which is the diet that defines the passover holiday. Interestingly, ancient Greeks also savoured the combination of fruit, nuts and honey. Sugar only appeared later during the Ottoman times. The recipe first appeared in Travel & Leisure, Asia May 2014.

Bidding adieu to 2014… Have a warm and wonderful 2015. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Summary: The Orange Almond Cake also doubles up as a great gluten free dessert if topped with mascarpone, creme patisserie or lightly whipped cream. Serve seasonal fruit like a balsamic orange vanilla strawberry reduction spooned over the top, or on the side.

Serves 6-8 Prep Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 2 hours Ingredients:

2 whole oranges

5 large eggs, separated

25g castor sugar

250g almond meal

175g honey

40g yogurt

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

pinch salt

1 tsp vanilla bean powder

Zest of 1 orange {or ½ tsp orange extract}

Method:

Place the whole oranges in a pan, cover completely with water and simmer covered for 30-45 minutes until soft. Drain and cool. {You can do this a day before and bring to room temperature before using}. Halve the cooked oranges, remove the pits and puree skin and all. Reserve.

Preheat the oven to 170C. Line the bottom and sides of a 7″ round baking tin with parchment.

Place the egg whites and 25g castor sugar in a large bowl and beat to stiff peaks. Reserve.

Place the egg yolks in a large bowl and beat until light and mousse like, about 5 minutes.

Beat in whole orange puree and honey, followed by the vanilla bean powder, yogurt and baking soda until just mixed.

Fold in the almond meal.

Fold in 2 tbsp of the beaten egg whites to loosen the batter, then fold in half the remaining egg whites. Fold gently so that the beaten air is not released. {This will help give rise and volume to the cake}. Fold in the remaining egg whites gently, and transfer batter to prepared tin.

Place tin on baking tray and bake for approx 1 hour 15 minutes / until a tester comes out clean. {Place the tin on a tray since honey tends to cook and get dark faster than sugar.}

Cool in tin for 30 minutes, then cool on rack.

Sift over with icing sugar and top with fresh orange wedges. Serve warm, at room temperature or chilled.

Another nice dessert idea is to use some for trifles layered with liqueur spiced low fat cream, crunchy almond praline and cubes of almond orange cake.

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